House of Trump

Katrina Pierson’s Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Week Just Got Worse

Katrina Pierson,Donald Trump’s bullet necklace-wearing spokeswoman and longtime viceroy of his army of cable-news surrogates, sometimes has a bit of trouble sticking to her talking points. Like the man for whom she serves as professional booster, Pierson can occasionally spout conspiracy theories and veer into factually incorrect territory. But also like Trump, she is incredibly good at sticking to her guns—even when she’s blasting her own team with friendly fire.

The past several days have been particularly vexing for the raven-haired face of the Trump campaign. On Monday, during an appearance on Fox Business News, Pierson raised eyebrows when she argued that the American people are “tired of seeing left-wing reporters literally beat Trump supporters into submission,” straining the accepted definition of the word “literally” beyond recognition. “It just shuts them down and that’s not what they’re seeing in this campaign.” (While Trump and his supporters have frequently lashed out at the media as if words could bludgeon, there have not, to date, been any examples of a reporter literally beating or assaulting a Trump supporter. The opposite, however has occasionally been true.)

Pierson’s recent missteps haven’t been limited to rhetorical flights of fancy, either. Over the weekend, she turned headed by insisting that President Barack Obama had invaded Afghanistan, expanding on Trump’s so-called “sarcastic” comments the week before about Obama founding ISIS. “If you want to go way back, we can look at the troop surge, and after 2007 al-Qaeda was essentially in ashes,” Pierson said, insisting that Obama and Hillary Clinton had screwed up by pulling troops out of Iraq early, allowing ISIS to occupy the power vacuum. “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time,” she continued. “Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.” (Pierson later admitted that Obama had not, in fact, invaded Afghanistan. She explained that she confused Syria with Afghanistan due to a faulty earpiece, the same excuse she gave when she mistakenly blamed Obama and Clinton for the death of Muslim-American soldier Humayun Khan, who died in 2004, long before Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, much less the White House.)

While Pierson’s Afghanistan gaffe was picked over on Saturday by the media, few picked up on another disastrous interview, on Fox News Sunday, in which she defended Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns by claiming that the tradition is, in fact, “a novelty.” Corrected by host Arthel Neville, who assured her the practice was a tradition going back to the 1970s, she replied: “It’s a novelty tradition!” Neville somewhat politely invited her to return on his show to discuss Trump’s returns after he released them.

An Illustrated History of Donald Trump’s Hair. Warning! Don’t Read Before Lunch!

In this photo from 1976, Trump shows off plans for the future Grand Hyatt on East 42nd Street to a city official. Considering the era and the man, this is a remarkably tasteful, organic-looking hairstyle. Nevertheless, the hard-charging young developer appears to be studying the older man’s pate-management techniques with an eye, as always, to the future.

Photo: By NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.

The year is 1985. Trump, pictured with his first wife, Ivana, is now parting his hair from left to right, as he does to this day (to the extent that the complex superstructure that is Trump’s hair can be said to have something as straightforward as a “part”). This is believed to be the last picture in which more than three-quarters of an inch of Trump’s forehead was exposed to public view.

Photo: By Ron Galella/WireImage.

Mr. and first-Mrs. Trump at the 1988 U.S. Open. Note that Ivana has essentially the same hairstyle as Donald, the rightward sweep of her hair echoing her husband’s, though Ivana’s tresses are clearly attached to her forehead in a way that lends all the more mystery and intrigue to his.

Photo: By PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images.

Trump at a circa 1990 event with Clive Davis, Rod Stewart, and Rachel Hunter. That is not a lobotomy scar on the side of the billionaire’s head but rather a severe and deep part that suggests a “problem area” on the top and back of his scalp is being compensated for. Note that this party picture is composed as meticulously as an allegoric Renaissance painting, with Trump occupying the symbolic middle ground, in terms of possessing active follicles, between Davis and Stewart. To the right, Hunter represents hair in its unfallen, natural-ish state.

Photo: By L. Cohen/WireImage.

Trump with son Donald Trump Jr. at a 2006 press event where they appear to be performers in a horrifying tableau vivant of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Skillful lighting reveals the father’s signature side-and-back comb-over (and over)—The Trump Crosshatch™—while the son’s mane has been styled to look genuinely, biologically luxuriant.

Photo: By J. Kempin/FilmMagic.

Trump, at a 2013 red-carpet event for All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, in disguise as former U.S. representative Dick Gephardt, possibly to avoid good-writing scolds who consider “All-Star Celebrity” redundant, and fact checkers who might deem the claim debatable.

Photo: By Matthew Eisman/WireImage.

Trump at Trump Tower this past June, announcing his candidacy for president. Cannily, he appears to be courting the women’s vote by having combed the hair on the left side of his head into the shape of a vagina.

Photo: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

In this photo from 1976, Trump shows off plans for the future Grand Hyatt on East 42nd Street to a city official. Considering the era and the man, this is a remarkably tasteful, organic-looking hairstyle. Nevertheless, the hard-charging young developer appears to be studying the older man’s pate-management techniques with an eye, as always, to the future.

By NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.

The year is 1985. Trump, pictured with his first wife, Ivana, is now parting his hair from left to right, as he does to this day (to the extent that the complex superstructure that is Trump’s hair can be said to have something as straightforward as a “part”). This is believed to be the last picture in which more than three-quarters of an inch of Trump’s forehead was exposed to public view.

By Ron Galella/WireImage.

Mr. and first-Mrs. Trump at the 1988 U.S. Open. Note that Ivana has essentially the same hairstyle as Donald, the rightward sweep of her hair echoing her husband’s, though Ivana’s tresses are clearly attached to her forehead in a way that lends all the more mystery and intrigue to his.

By PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images.

Trump at a circa 1990 event with Clive Davis, Rod Stewart, and Rachel Hunter. That is not a lobotomy scar on the side of the billionaire’s head but rather a severe and deep part that suggests a “problem area” on the top and back of his scalp is being compensated for. Note that this party picture is composed as meticulously as an allegoric Renaissance painting, with Trump occupying the symbolic middle ground, in terms of possessing active follicles, between Davis and Stewart. To the right, Hunter represents hair in its unfallen, natural-ish state.

By L. Cohen/WireImage.

Trump and then-girlfriend Marla Maples sanctifying their love, like all devoted couples do, at a press event in 1991. Note that Trump’s “hairline” is now nearly contiguous with his eyebrows. Is this evidence of the scalp reduction he allegedly underwent in 1989, according to divorce papers filed by Ivana and recounted in the 1993 biography Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump?

By Ron Galella/WireImage.

Trump’s 1993 wedding to Maples, the second Mrs. Trump. Strangely, the hair on the left side of the groom’s head is a full half foot taller than on the right. This imbalance may be the result of the three or four inter-dimensional, gravity-warping vortexes clearly visible in the back of his head.

By The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

Trump bending over to share a tender moment with his son Eric in 1991. This inadvertent overhead view reveals that, claims to Swedish ancestry notwithstanding, Trump is in fact part unicorn.

By The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

Trump with the John F. Kennedy Jr. at a 1999 New York Knicks game. Observe how the businessman’s hair breaks over his collar like a viscous, bird-killing oil slick. Why is J.F.K. Jr. the one wearing a hat?

By Keith Torrie/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.

Trump at an outdoor event in around 2000, after ordering his stylist to color his hair and eyebrows a then-chic shade known as “Cigar-Stained-Teeth Blonde.” Tellingly, the wind affects but a single quadrant of Trump’s hair, as if the rest were bolted down like a storm cellar door.

By Budd Williams/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images.

In this 2002 photograph, Trump has changed his hair color to “Burnt-Cheetos Auburn.” As well, the conventional hairsprays and salon products of years past appear to have given way to rubber cement and snot.

By Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

Unlike her husband, the third Mrs. Trump, Melania Knauss, is comfortable enough in her femininity to show off her normal but comparatively high hairline in this 2002 photo.

By KMazur/WireImage.

Trump, shown here, in 2003, with Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, experiments with white roots and light filaments wrapped around the back of his head. Historians call this developer’s “middle-aged club kid” phase.

By Jim Spellman/WireImage.

Trump at the 2004 Emmys. At this point, we’re just fucking with your stomach. Had lunch yet?

By Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.

Trump with son Donald Trump Jr. at a 2006 press event where they appear to be performers in a horrifying tableau vivant of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Skillful lighting reveals the father’s signature side-and-back comb-over (and over)—The Trump Crosshatch™—while the son’s mane has been styled to look genuinely, biologically luxuriant.

By J. Kempin/FilmMagic.

Trump, at a 2013 red-carpet event for All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, in disguise as former U.S. representative Dick Gephardt, possibly to avoid good-writing scolds who consider “All-Star Celebrity” redundant, and fact checkers who might deem the claim debatable.

By Matthew Eisman/WireImage.

Trump at Trump Tower this past June, announcing his candidacy for president. Cannily, he appears to be courting the women’s vote by having combed the hair on the left side of his head into the shape of a vagina.